As if he didn’t have enough on his mind, Elon Musk is once again in big trouble. Tesla is under attack on two fronts: on the one hand, the owner of a Tesla Model S will have to answer for vehicular murder in a complicated case that threatens the safety of Automatic pilot; on the other hand, the shareholders of the car manufacturer dispute i receiving maxi bonuses from Elon Musk: «system manipulated, production targets are too low».
According to the site The Verge, these two legal disputes will put a strain on the leadership of Elon Musk, who will have to deal with two extremely urgent matters while he is already in the process of Twitter’s disastrous reorganization process. Not only that: the reputation of Tesla, the company on which most of his personal wealth depends, is also at stake.
Shareholder cause Elon Musk risks losing the $56 billion maxi bonus
As known, Elon Musk he technically receives no salary for his role as CEO of Tesla. His compensation is tied to the automaker’s performance, thanks to a pact he signed with his automaker’s board in 2018. Then Tesla was worth $59 billion, today it’s worth $650 billion – and its market capitalization even surpassed $1,000 billion for a short time. The agreement included 12 objectives, which corresponded to 12 extremely generous bonuses. Elon Musk should collect the last tranche by the end of the year, bringing the total value of the options received to 56 billion dollars. This would be the highest compensation ever received by the CEO of a publicly traded company.
The shareholders argue that the agreement signed in 2018 included an obligation for Musk to work full-time as CEO of Tesla and that this obligation would have been ignored by his role in numerous other companies: SpaceX, Boring Company, Neuralink and now even Twitter. Not only that: the shareholders argue that the board that recognized Musk with this generous stimulus program was not independent, but mainly consisted of the billionaire’s “Yes Man”: from friends Antonio Gracias and Steve Jurvetson to his brother Kimbal.
He will have to decide on that Kathleen McCormick which, ironically, is the same judge that was supposed to determine the outcome of the legal dispute between Musk and Twitter.
Autopilot engaged
And then there’s the trial starting these days in Los Angeles, where an NCC service driver will have to answer for the accusation of traffic murder, after his Tesla Model S ran a red light and collided with a Honda Civic. Two people were killed in the accident.
Over there NHTSA – the US federal agency that deals with road safety – confirmed that Autopilot was active at the time of the accident and that it had opened an investigation into the incident. The results of the study will be published very soon.
Tesla is not formally charged in this lawsuit, but the outcome could have important ramifications for the automaker’s (and others’) reputation. The Public Prosecution Service will have to try to recognize the driver’s full responsibility. An extremely difficult feat, if it were proven that Autopilot was indeed active at the time of impact. If the man is acquitted, NHTSA — which has long been investigating Tesla’s self-driving software — would have another argument to penalize the automaker and ask for tougher rules. Needless to say, Wall Street will be following the outcome of the process closely.
Source: Lega Nerd
